


change up your symmetry

by honeyvoiced



Category: Dynasty (TV 2017)
Genre: Art Kink???, Body Paint, F/M, Gratuitous Foreplay, literally WHAT IS THIS!!!, starving for kadam until s4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:08:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28029039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeyvoiced/pseuds/honeyvoiced
Summary: The stiller she stayed and the more she focused, the more she felt. Every single bristle gliding through paint and water, placing color in its path;
Relationships: Kirby Anders/Adam Carrington
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11





	change up your symmetry

**Author's Note:**

> For the Kadam fandom, all of the members of which I'm pretty sure I can count on my hands.  
> Thank you Amanda, for beta-reading :)

_"Shit!"_

Hissing in surprise, Kirby glanced down at the mess she'd made on the countertop, red wine splashing against the granite surface and rolling threateningly towards the edge. Reaching for the roll of paper towels hanging below one of the nearest cabinets, she stopped the spread in its tracks and then brought her hand to her mouth to suck the remaining wine from the side of her finger. The wine glass she'd been filling teemed with liquid - much fuller than the quick five-ounce pour that she'd been going for. A few stray droplets rolled lazily down the sides of the crystal, creating a ring at the base of the glass.

Glancing over at Adam again, she held her breath, wondering if he would turn and notice her panic, forcing her to explain why exactly she'd been so distracted, but he hardly moved. If she couldn't see the slight flutter in the muscles of his shoulder - which had been the original cause of her clumsiness - she would think that he was keeping perfectly still. Sure that he wasn't going to witness her less-than-graceful error correction, she dipped her head down and sipped from the edge of the glass, trying not to make too much noise as she drank until it was deemed safe to pick up, then sloshed half of its contents into its empty companion on the counter. Picking up both glasses and flicking her hair back from her face, she regained a little composure and then rounded the counter to head to the sitting area that Adam was currently occupying.

He didn't even blink as she approached, his eyes focused intently on the canvas before him. Her eyes flicked from his side profile to the painting instead: a nighttime oceanscape. Not only was it different from his usual portrait-esque, more colorful works, but it was also geographically very different from their surroundings. Deep blue waves crashed up against black rocks, swallowing the beach whole and creating a horrifying, sublime feeling, but Adam was focused on the skyline. His wrist hardly moved, just the tips of his fingers creating the softest of flicking motions, the ultra fine-tip brush held gently between them adding layer after layer of minute color and detail to a single star barely visible behind a dark storm cloud. Waiting until he wasn't doing something so precarious, Kirby held her breath watching, then smiled and slipped an arm around his chest when he paused to rewet the brush. 

Wordlessly, she set his glass of wine on the small side table that he'd pulled closer to his workspace, and pressed her chin to his shoulder to take a closer look at the painting.

"This is different," she pointed out.

He made a small noise of acknowledgement in the back of his throat, only tearing his eyes away from the painting as well to make sure that he was in fact dipping his brush in paint water, and not his wine. He wasn't dismissive, though, dropping his arm slightly so that she could lean against him more comfortably and watch as he continued.

His shoulder tensed beneath her chin as he moved back into position, so she sat up further and took a moment to sip from her own wine, instead. The glass was sticky beneath her fingers from her earlier mishap, so she popped her fingertips into her mouth after setting it back down. That brought the man's attention away from his work, even just for a moment, soft blue darkening as he focused on her before he turned away again and returned to detailing the stars. Waiting until his brush lifted from the canvas again, she slipped her arm back across his bare chest once more and pressed herself to his side.

"What brought this on?"

She nodded to the piece, as Adam turned to rewet the brush. 

"Just a photo that I saw." 

Kirby looked at it more carefully, choosing her next words thoughtfully. She didn't want to insult him or embarrass herself by misinterpreting it.

"Where is it?"

"Nowhere," he replied easily, shifting a little. His muscles pulled under her hand and just as she moved to pull away, to give him room, his brush hand dropped and left a clean line of white down her arm. "Oh, sorry."

His entire demeanor shifted, his concentration broken. He dropped the brush to the edge of the easel, twisting around in his spot to grab her his shirt that was draped across the arm of the couch. 

"Oh, you don't have to -" she started to protest, watching as he dipped the edge of what was an undoubtedly expensive t-shirt into his brush-filled water cup.

"No, it was my mistake," he insisted, wringing out the wet bit of the shirt in his hand. Stray drops hit her arm, causing her skin to jump in surprise.

"Well, what does Bob Ross say?" Kirby joked, ignoring the feeling of goosebumps appearing on her skin from the cold water and the way his hand was gripping her wrist more roughly than he probably realized. "There are no mistakes, right? Just happy accidents?"

"You like Bob Ross?" Adam asked, his eyes flicking up to her face. A tiny, amused smirk tugged one corner of his mouth and Kirby flushed.

"No," she replied, embarrassed. "I - don't even know why I said that."

Adam chuckled, a low rumble from his chest that softened his features. He was still, for a moment, a calculating, thoughtful look appearing on his face as he set the damp shirt aside and reached for his brush again, instead.

"Well, maybe you're onto something. You _and_ Bob, that is."

Blushing even more, Kirby let her jaw go slack, watching as he dropped the tip of the brush to her arm, deliberately this time, and thickened the line of paint into a smoother curve.

She didn’t even realize she was holding her breath until he concluded the line with a small flick of his hand, turning away from her to reach for a different brush. His grip on her wrist loosened and she finally remembered how to speak.

“What’re you doing?”

“Painting,” he answered simply. He returned to her arm with a new brush, his grip retightening as he brought a bluish off-white into the mix, creating a much thicker line below the white from earlier. Kirby squirmed uncomfortably on the spot as the coldness left a trail of raised hair in its wake, reflexively pulling back from him when he brought the colors around to the considerably more sensitive inner part of her forearm instead.

He glanced up at her and they locked eyes, but she pushed her arm closer to him encouragingly again before he could say anything. Her expression mirrored his, she could feel it: curious.

"Is that cold?"

"Very," she replied, dropping her gaze to her arm again as he brought the brush down once more and continued working.

"Sorry," he replied, more of a breath than a statement. He made no movement to do anything about it, though, thickening the blue and blending it into the white with his thumb absentmindedly. He was much warmer than the paint; the contrasting sensations and temperatures wrung another squirm out of her.

Turning away, he grabbed a third brush, bringing back the white from earlier. Brushing it against his thumb as he gripped it in the side of his hand, he sprayed tiny dots along the previous two sections, and his vision bloomed to life, appearing so suddenly it was like Kirby had been blind moments before. The scene on her arm was like a brighter daytime continuation of what he’d been doing on the canvas, ocean waves spraying across her skin and she felt a shock of something similar to homesickness. This feeling wasn’t as heavy in her chest, though - it was closer to comfort, or nostalgia, like looking back on something lost with fondness instead of regret. He set the thick brush aside to grab the ultra-fine one from earlier, still caked in white, and began to add additional dots into the fray, eyes narrowed in concentration. She had to blame the feeling of bubbliness growing in her stomach for her reaction as he trailed further up her forearm, poking the pin-like end of the brush into her skin. His movements were feather-light, but as the bristles prodded into the crook of her elbow she chuckled, her arm jerking reflexively in his hand. Not anticipating the movement, he didn’t hold her fast, and the tiny dot he’d been intending turned into a much larger shape. 

“Sorry,” she breathed, biting her lip. “It itches.”

“It’s okay,” he promised, turning around to clean the brush in the water and slicking away the excess water on his own arm before reaching for hers again. She offered it up with no protest, watching as he pulled the skin taut and began to use the clean brush to tidy the edges of the spot. Her skin jumped under the sensation, but he held her much more firmly. “Stay still.”

The words were stern, but his tone was gentle. Still, her breath caught, but he didn’t look up from his work. The spot looked perfect after a moment, but he continued tracing around it - Kirby had a sneaking suspicion he was doing it on purpose, now, just to slowly drive her mad.

Chewing her lip for a moment, she cleared her throat as it became overwhelming.

“I think you got it, Adam.”

He grinned, then, before glancing up at her and saying innocently, “If I’d known how hard this would be for you, I’d have tied you up.”

Her jaw went slack and she stared at him for a moment, trying to scramble to wrap her head around his words. His grin - sweet, casual, like what he’d said had absolutely no insidious undertones - didn’t leave his face. Playing his own game, she shrugged her free arm.

“Yeah, maybe you should have.”

They locked their stares onto each other, each one daring the other to speak first; to chicken out and end the game.

It was Adam - unsurprisingly. 

“Something to keep in mind for next time,” he mused, finally taking the brush away. 

Kirby felt a surge of disappointment but said nothing, leaning over to watch him choose the next brush. The larger flat-tipped one that he selected and then dabbed onto his mixing palette was a welcome relief of sensation as he turned to her again and made methodical slow strokes from the crook of her elbow to her wrist. Clear, bright blue covered her skin and added the ocean needed to the scene that was unfolding there. The cool water from the paint was soothing - she hadn’t realized just how warm she was getting until then. Shifting on the spot a little, Kirby watched his face instead of his brush, letting herself relax a little more and fully enjoy every feeling instead of feeling like she was being tortured on some low frequency. Careful not to dislodge his brush, she brought one leg up under herself to adjust her position, then gasped out loud when she realized just how invested in said torture she’d really been. 

Adam’s brush paused, but he didn’t look up, and when he continued a moment later, she pressed the heel of her foot into herself, grinding almost uncomfortably against it experimentally. Part of her wanted to surge forward, knock the paintbrush out of his hand and kiss him, but another, much deeper part of herself wanted him to continue indefinitely. Taking advantage of his focus being on his brush, she closed her eyes, trying to isolate the sensation in order to imagine it elsewhere - everywhere. Picturing the brush in his hand sweeping across her lower back, the much more devilish detail brush trailing a hair-thin line around her -

“All done.”

“Huh?” Adam’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts, drawing her attention back to him and then to the oceanscape on her arm.

“What do you think?”

Kirby cleared her throat, blinking the haze from her eyes and trying to focus.

“Oh,” she turned her arm back and forth a little as he let go of her, admiring it from each angle. “It’s beautiful.”

Adam turned away, putting the brushes back into the water cup, his half-finished canvas long forgotten and apparently abandoned for the evening. Panicked disappointment flooded Kirby’s brain, the earlier fantasy slipping out of her metaphorical grasp before her very eyes.

“It uh - it needs something.” She almost stammered, shaking her head a little to force a more confident tone. “A beach, maybe.”

Adam paused, glancing back at her and pausing his task of pressing the brushes down to the bottom of the glass. Clouds of color bloomed from the bristles into the water, turning it a murky shade of blue. He caught her eye, and she felt too excited to bother with embarrassment when his features took on a knowing, heavy look.

"Oh? You think so?"

"Yes," she replied quickly. "Please."

He surveyed her thoughtfully, then nodded.

“You’re probably right.” Reaching for her arm, he pulled it closer and then lowered his head, blowing a stream of cool air across the last area he’d worked on, where the paint was still wet. Kirby shivered hard, leaning closer to him out of reflex, but just as she drew closer, he pulled away. “I’ll let that dry, first.”

Reaching back, he grabbed his wine, holding it up in gesture until she grabbed her own with one shaking hand. They tipped their glasses together, clinking the rims before taking a sip simultaneously. Kirby hadn’t realized how dry her throat had become, and knew it was entirely to blame on the anticipation and nerves. They drank in silence for a moment; the only sound in the room was the crackling of the blaze in the fireplace. 

Standing up and carefully grabbing each side of the canvas from the easel, Adam crossed the room with it and propped it against the wall among a couple of other incomplete pieces there. Returning to flatten the easel itself and move it as well, he brushed past her, drifting one hand over her shoulder. It was a familiar, affectionate gesture, but Kirby felt so on edge and oversensitized that the simple action caused her to lean back against him, pausing him in his tracks. 

Tilting her head all the way back to look up at him, she smiled softly at the quizzical look he gave her that quickly morphed into a small smile of his own. He dipped down to kiss her and she deepened it, raising her free hand to bury into his hair. He stiffened in surprise at first, but she felt him melt into her after a moment, then leaning in closer, he met her enthusiasm halfway, rounding the edge of the couch to kiss her again. All of his softness was always so quickly unraveled as soon as she gave it room to. She heard him blindly set down his wine glass on the side table and then both of his hands were on her, cupping either side of her face and tilting her upwards as he loomed over her. His fingers pressing into either side of her jaw - not enough to hurt, but enough to keep her still and close - were such a contrast from their gentleness earlier when he had been focused on his art.

Her own hands planted against his bare chest and seemed to snap him out of it, catching her wrist gently as he let go of her and broke the kiss to look at her arm, checking for any sign that the paint had moved. It seemed to be fairly well dried though, then - Kirby was grateful that his medium for that evening had been watercolor instead of oil, in a lucky turn of fate - so he let her go, satisfied.

"Where should we put the beach?"

Kirby stared up at him as he leaned over, reaching behind her to grab his wine once more, then grabbed the bottom hem of her shirt, pulling it over her head in a single swift movement.

His eyes dropped - only for a moment - then darted back up to her face. She pulled the hair tie from her wrist, piling her hair messily on top of her head and securing it into place as she stared back challengingly. As he took his earlier seat, she offered her arm to him again.

“Against the water. Obviously.” 

She gestured at her arm, now that the short sleeves of her shirt were no longer impeding the view, and then turned her body to be closer to him.

"Obviously," he repeated. There was something playfully threatening about his sarcastic agreement that sent a jolt of giddiness through her as he turned to choose a brush and pick up his palette.

"So," she said conversationally, staring back into the kitchen instead of watching him prepare. "If the other painting was from a photo, what's this one from?"

Adam paused, visibly thinking hard about his answer before replying.

"I don't know. A dream, maybe. I don't remember."

Just as Kirby opened her mouth to answer she felt the brush come down on the cap of her shoulder, ice-cold water dripping down the outside and back of her arm, wringing a louder-than-intended squeal out of her.

"Oh, fuck -" She cursed, jerking away in surprise and then laughing at the ridiculous magnitude of her reaction when Adam pulled back from her in alarm.

He laughed too, covering his mouth with one hand to stifle it when she whipped her head around to look at him.

“Sorry - that was my bad.”

Dropping her shoulder a little to peer at the color he'd placed, she pursed her lips and then shrugged.

"As long as I didn't mess you up. A little warning would be nice, though."

Sliding a little closer, Adam wordlessly continued placing the color, a light sandy-toned beige, around the cap of her shoulder and down her arm to meet with the spraying waves from earlier.

"'S a big beach," she observed.

"I don't have much experience with beaches," he admitted, "Besides, I don't remember asking for your critique."

She chuckled, rolling her eyes at his faux-irritation, and looked away again.

“Right, how rude of me. I’ll let you continue painting your very weird beach in silence.”

Bristles prodded unexpectedly at her neck, low below her jaw and darting up to the sensitive spot behind her ear, causing her to reel back in surprise. An embarrassing noise came from her that she hadn’t even known she was capable of making, causing the man next to her to laugh loudly. 

"Don't do that - _no!_ " She leaned away from him, preemptively giggling when he leaned in with the brush threateningly again. "Stop it. I don't want to mess you up."

Pulling away and putting up both hands in surrender, the grin didn't leave Adam's face as he turned to his palette again and started to mix a new shade.

He returned innocently enough, laughing again when she reflexively flinched away and waving a new, smaller brush around.

"I'm not going to do it again. This was _your_ idea. C'mon, I want to add seashells."

The idea of that detail was intriguing enough for her to trustingly shimmy closer, sighing contentedly when he went back to work on her arm, near the crook of her elbow where the waves met the sand. She found herself watching his face; the way his eyes narrowed in concentration, softening around the edges when a detail turned out exactly how he had imagined it. 

It was sweet enough to distract her from the intensity of everything she’d been feeling earlier, and the less-sensitive canvas of her upper arm gave her time to cool down both mentally and physically. But then, he looked up and caught her gaze, and his eyes darkened.

She tried to hold her stare as best she could, but it was surprisingly difficult. When he looked at her that way it took her to new levels of vulnerability - more naked when he was analyzing her like that then she was in any state of undress.

“How’s it look? You’re the expert.”

Kirby finally dropped her eyes to herself, lifting her arm slowly and turning it back and forth to admire what he’d painted so far.

“It’s pretty.”

Adam waited a beat, clearly expecting more detail, but when it didn’t come, he cleared his throat.

“That all?”

She looked up at him again and smiled a little.

“Very pretty.”

“Does it… need anything else?”

Her eyes narrowed in realization, her own smile growing slowly.

“Yeah.” Leaning forward, she pressed her lips to his, much more gently than before, and mumbled, “Back home, the beaches usually have trees. After the sand.”

Adam licked his lips slowly as she pulled away and nodded.

“I’m running out of space,” he pointed out, gesturing to her arm. The paint was already drying, the thinner layers that he’d used almost itching as they tightened up against her skin. 

She looked down at what he’d done so far again and frowned thoughtfully.

“No you aren’t,” she protested. With her paint-free arm, she reached behind herself and deftly unclipped the back of her bralette, letting the straps fall down her arms. She felt one brush against the fresh paint, and as the black material fell to her lap, she noticed that it had a bit of the beige color wiped onto it. Adam didn’t seem too bothered about her smudging some of his work, though, surging forward and kissing her again. She broke away just enough to speak again, grinning when he dropped his head to kiss her neck in the absence of her lips, instead. “Maybe some rocks, too.”

“Sounds like a diverse landscape,” Adam replied. She could hear how desperately he was trying to match her sarcasm, but his voice shook along with his hands as he slipped them around her waist.

Kissing him again, she let him lower her back against the couch, only sitting up again to undo the buckle of his belt. It was nice to know that all of the anticipation hadn’t been entirely one-sided, though Kirby was feeling like her situation was considerably more _urgent_ than his was, sliding one hand under the waist of his pants as they loosened around his hips and trying to coax him closer to her. She _had_ wanted him to continue the painting, but if he had other ideas for how to spend the rest of their evening, that wasn’t anything to complain about, either.

He kept just far enough away from her to make her realize that it was intentional, though. Not a tease, but a distracted move as he brushed one thumb thoughtfully over the now-dry spot that she'd smudged on her arm.

"I'm sorry," she repeated, watching his face for a sign of disappointment.

"Hm?" His eyes jumped from her arm to hers, softening. "No - I'm not... I was just thinking about what you said. About the trees." 

Holding her breath, Kirby watched his hand move from her arm to her torso, pressing the tips of his fingers to the base of her ribs and then sliding in a slow, straight line towards her navel. Flushed from the combination of the heat of the fireplace and their earlier activities, he left white lines on her skin where he touched, its original color blooming back into place in their wake.

“Maybe here.”

Her nerves jumped under the surface everywhere he touched and she felt herself moving involuntarily despite her best efforts to keep still. He leaned back in, pressing a kiss to the spot where her shoulder met her chest, just above her collarbone as his hand passed across her stomach to the other side of her waist, holding her gently. The movement lulled her into a false sense of security - undoubtedly his intention - relaxing her so much that she barely paid attention to that hand continuing upward.

“And rocks. You mentioned rocks.”

His hand brushed lightly over her breast as he pulled back, giving her nowhere to hide or muffle the startled gasp that the tiny, casual gesture pulled out of her. 

“Now, can I get back to it?”

He sat up a little further and Kirby couldn’t help but laugh a tiny bit, feeling almost drunk with, _delirious_ with need. 

“Yeah. Yeah, sure.”

Busying herself with propping the throw pillow behind her more comfortably against the arm of the couch and grabbing her wine for a much-needed sip, Kirby tried not to spend too much time staring at Adam while he worked, mixing colors with a tight-jawed look of concentration. The next time anyone invited her to a sip-and-paint night she was probably going to have a Pavlovian response inappropriate for a public setting, but _this_ all seemed incredibly worth it.

He slid off of the couch as he turned to her again, settling in instead on the floor alongside her and nodding to her in gesture.

“Arm up, please.” 

She followed his instruction, moving her painted arm up carefully, trying not to strain or crack the paint already there. A nervous, affectionate flutter built up in her chest when he gently took her hand in his own, easing it up over his shoulder so that she didn’t need to hold it up on her own while he worked.

“Here’s that warning you asked for,” he said, before readjusting the deep-green coated brush in his hand and pressing it softly to the middle of her ribs. 

She jumped a little from the cold, her hiss of protest dying in her throat when his eyes darted up to meet hers, clearly curious for a reaction. She wasn’t sure why that seemed like such a challenge - maybe because of the way his lips curled almost imperceptibly upward or the way his brows raised ever so slightly in expectation.

“S’fine,” she told him, trying not to grit her teeth. “Carry on.”

He did carry on, not needing any more encouragement than that, and started slow methodical strokes, back and forth as he worked his way from the side of her breast down to her waist. She couldn't see the process from this angle as well as she could when he was working on her arm, but it was easy to picture when she closed her eyes and paid attention to the placement of his brush. He was working on the general shape of trees - dark, and thick, and coniferous. When she'd told him that the beaches she knew had trees, she'd pictured something more tropical, but she realized that that didn't really matter. He wasn't necessarily painting a beach she'd been to - and from what he'd told her about his own lack of familiarity with the landscape from a firsthand perspective, it wasn't from his memory either. Just like the dark, almost sad piece that he'd been working on earlier, this painting wasn't something anyone else would be able to find. _Their_ beach - only for them.

She was surprised with her own power to sit still while he worked - she wouldn’t consider what he was doing particularly enticing, except Adam had an innate ability to set her on edge just by being around her. She felt more sensitive than usual, her entire body wound up tightly but simultaneously paralyzed by her own interest in seeing where he’d go. The stiller she stayed and the more she focused, the more she felt. Every _single_ bristle gliding through paint and water, placing color in its path; the branches of the tree he had started on a few moments earlier splayed outward, tracing lightly along the underside of her breast, joining the others that had slowly migrated onto the side of her stomach. He pulled the brush away, leaned closer, and blew on the paint, intentionally letting his breath fan out enough to breeze over her nipple. Her back arched and she dug her fingers into his shoulder harshly.

_“Adam.”_

“Mm?”

She wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted to say, but her warning tone seemed to do enough of the work. He dropped her gaze as quickly as he caught it, smiling to himself as he sat back and set the brush aside, mixing a new, lighter shade on the palette instead.

She shifted, trying not to let her arm drop from his shoulder as he leaned away from her, but he pressed his free hand to her thigh to keep her still. It was a gentle touch, his fingers dropping to her inner thigh and rubbing there with what was much more clearly affection than anything suggestive, but the movement made her tense nonetheless, shifting to close her legs as subtly as possible. Glancing back when his knuckles were pressed to the inside of her opposite leg as they both closed around him, his eyes travelled from her skirt up her torso to her face, one brow raising curiously.

"Should I continue?"

"Please," she replied quickly, hearing the breathiness in her own voice that she hadn't intended to put there.

"I meant the painting," he replied smugly.

"So did I," she shot back challengingly, taking her arm from his shoulder just enough to sit herself up a little more. He pulled his hand free and sat back to admire her for a moment, squinting at his work so far and nodding slowly.

"I just need to detail the trees." 

"Can I see it?" 

"Not yet," he hummed, sliding closer again with a much smaller brush. "After."

“Fine,” she huffed, faux-annoyed. He caught her eye and she grinned in spite of how on edge she felt. His hand returned to her thigh and her breath caught, but she willed herself to keep her eyes on his face and not his hand. Placing the handle of his detail brush between his teeth, he used his now-free hand to tug the waist of her skirt down slightly, stopping it from riding up any higher and disturbing any of the bases for the trees. 

“Maybe this should come off.”

She wasn’t sure why _that_ felt like such a final blow - the last thing standing between herself and complete defeat - but it did. As if she’d done a good job of acting unaffected or uninterested, the knowledge that there was going to be nothing stopping him from taking in just how unbelievably wet being turned into his canvas had made her was almost embarrassing - though the embarrassment was drowned out by the much more intense feeling of intrigue. 

“Probably wise,” she replied shakily, lifting herself up just enough for him to pull it the rest of the way down. His hand left her thigh and grabbed the other side of the skirt instead, inching it down her legs until it was at her calves, letting her kick it off the remainder of the way. 

He turned his attention back to her and grinned - it was wolfish, and she wasn’t expecting it; it sent a chill down her spine in the most pleasant of ways, and she was so distracted by it that she didn’t pay attention to what he was doing, moaning loudly and abruptly when he pressed his fingers to her without warning. She was already so wet and sensitized that despite her panties being in the way they hardly provided any barrier. Spreading her legs a little further, she rocked against him and let herself drop back to the couch, closing her eyes.

“We’ll have to do this more often,” Adam commented, but his voice sounded far away and cloudy.

She nodded, barely paying attention, then gasping and grabbing his wrist when she blindly felt the detail brush twisting branch-like details into the skin to the right of her navel.

"Wait," she panted, but he twisted his arm free with ease and continued.

" _Still_ ," he reminded her, pressing his fingers to her more insistently and rolling slow circles around her clit with his thumb.

She was tempted to twist around and throw him off intentionally just to spite him but did as he asked, trying to focus on the feeling of his fingers between her legs instead of the maddening itch of the detail brush trying to distract her. She needed it elsewhere, _urgently_ , whining softly when it trailed up to work on the trees that had extended just under her breast, drawing closer and closer to exactly what she wanted before pulling back.

He continually turned away from her, leaving his non-painting hand where it was, to re-up the color on his brush, but said nothing in response to her hardly-coherent protests each time. 

The paint was already drying by the time he finally stopped, caked onto her and beginning to itch in a way that would have been uncomfortable in any other circumstances, were her nerves not desperate for _any_ sort of sensation broader than the pin-head sized tip of his brush could make. His fingers between her legs stilled, but she could hardly register it. She was breathless, too, and growing increasingly worried that the slow sheen of perspiration growing on her skin was going to mess up his work. He seemed to have a similar concern, his eyes flicking up and down her side before he sat back with a sigh.

“You’re _really_ having trouble with this, hm?”

Her cheeks flushed and she narrowed her eyes at him.

“You’re torturing me on purpose.”

“Only a little bit,” he admitted. Turning away from her altogether, she watched hazily while he mixed a fresh color and returned to her side with a new brush. Anticipatorily spreading her legs, she frowned in confusion when he shook his head, tutting softly. “I need to focus this time,” he told her.

Dipping the brush - a considerably less daunting-looking medium-tipped thing with sable bristles and a hand-carved handle - into his new color, Adam fixed his eyes on hers.

“If I mess this up, it’ll throw the whole thing off. I wouldn’t want to have to start over.”

That sounded deliciously horrible, but Kirby bit her tongue. As much fun as messing him up so that he would start again, drawing out the maddeningly hellish pleasure she’d been floating in for the last… hour? - she’d lost track of time - sounded in theory, she knew that a recreation of this evening would be contingent on the success of this one. On top of that, what she _could_ see clearly of the painting so far was beautiful, and she felt oddly closer to him than she had in a while - not that they’d been having trouble with any sort of distance, physical or otherwise. It made her feel warm and _loved_ to be not only a part of what he was doing, but to be looked at by him with equal admiration as the art itself. She didn’t like to place too much value on the way men looked at her in terms of how she saw herself - but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be flattered that he saw her that way.

She was pulled out of her thoughts by Adam cupping her breast, drawing the brush softly along the underside. Quickly placing her arm back around his shoulder to give him more room to work, she closed her eyes again and settled into the sensations while trying to ignore the building urgency. She'd thought that trying to keep still while he touched her _exactly_ where she'd wanted was difficult, but was quickly learning that having brought her up to the edge only to leave her there and focus on other sensitive spots was considerably worse.

Lifting his brush only for a moment, she caught the hint of gray on the dark bristles, but he returned it to her skin before she could open her mouth to ask. Creating a half-circle around from beneath to the side of her breast, she steeled herself for the path to continue: a constant swirling and circling around and around until she was begging for him to finally hit the bullseye. He took her completely by surprise and suddenly swept the end of the brush straight down, planting a cold streak of paint across her nipple and continuing along the underside as if he’d done nothing. The only evidence - other than the paint - was the whimper of shock that he’d forced out of her; a sound so foreign to her own ears that for a moment she wasn’t even sure it had been her that had made it.

Barely giving her a moment to catch her breath or register, he did it again - then a third time, much more quickly. She wasn’t looking, but she was sure he’d managed to place his color the first time, continuing only for her benefit. Shifting and trying to work her free hand down under the waistband of her underwear, she rocked her hips up and _just_ managed to push them down when the brush dropped and his fingers wrapped solidly around her wrist. His grip was tight but painless, not wrenching but rather holding her perfectly still.

“I’m finished,” he told her.

He let go of her completely, sitting back on his haunches and raising an eyebrow when she didn’t immediately move. Abandoning her somewhat frantic quest to get her hand down her underwear, she sat up a little and craned her neck to try to look at herself more clearly. Adam stood from his spot on the floor and wandered towards the dining area wordlessly as she twisted each way to see, returning to her side with the mirror that was hung on the wall near the window.

“Here,” he offered, standing back and angling it so that she was framed in it and able to admire her reflection properly. It was as beautiful as she'd been picturing, if not more so. Unlike any beach in the real world, it was unmatched in terms of lushness - for a moment, she almost felt sad that it wasn't based on anywhere real that she could actually visit, but that was part of what made it so special.

She spotted the little smudge on the sand from when she'd taken off her bra and chuckled despite her guilty conscience, glancing up from her reflection to Adam's face, instead.

"D'you want to take a picture of it?"

"No," he replied easily. "When I do it again, I don't want to compare them."

"Again?" she repeated, trying to keep the eager grin off of her face.

"Of course," he replied, setting the mirror down carefully and then stepping closer to her. He reached for her ankles, lifting them carefully and sliding smoothly onto the couch with her legs across his lap. Pursing his lips, he absentmindedly picked up a clean brush to fiddle with and placed his free hand on her hip. It was so light that she hardly felt him through the layer of paint licking up her side there. “I think… this is my favorite part.”

She felt it _then_ , when he dusted his fingers over the dried paint, outlining one of the trees with a single digit. Holding her breath, she glanced over at the mirror, propped up still within her line of sight, and then gestured.

“I like the rocks.”

“I bet you did,” he mused, bringing the blush back to her face instantaneously.

“You’re sure you don’t want a picture?” she asked.

“No,” he repeated, shaking his head slightly. “It wouldn’t do it justice, anyway.” His hand moved from her hip to the crease where it met her thigh, and she inhaled sharply. She twisted ever so slightly, as if hoping to knock his hand into place where she wanted it, but he stiffened, staying still. Setting her jaw in frustration, she ground down towards his lap instead, feeling him pressing uncomfortably against his pants and against the back of her knee. The fingers on her hip curled into the waistband of her panties and began to inch them down her legs - _success._

Dropping herself back against the pillow comfortably, she sighed as the garment was rolled off of her ankles and tossed aside, feeling the man on the other end of the couch shift her out of his lap in order to hover over her. One hand returned to her thigh, and then his lips pressed softly below her navel. Tugging her lower lip between her teeth, she dropped her unpainted arm so she could bury her fingers in his hair, preparing for the warmth to wash over her - until the sensation she was struck with instead was freezing cold, especially in contrast to the heat that had made its home between her legs.

“Oh - _fuck!”_ She tensed up in surprise, reflexively moving to squeeze her legs closed but his head and shoulders impeded her movement. _“Adam!”_

“Kirby,” he replied calmly, lifting his head to meet her gaze when she looked down at him accusingly. With one arm propped between her legs, he smiled innocently up at her and twirled the brush between his fingers in gesture. “It’s clean. Just water. My hands, however…” he trailed off and her eyes fixed on his hand, dried spots and flecks of paint coating the tips and sides of his fingers. Unable to come up with any excuse for him to absolutely _not_ continue _that_ other than how badly she needed to cum - undoubtedly _why_ he was doing it in the first place - she flopped back heavily into her original position and let out a low, tortured groan.

“Adam,” she warned - she even pitched her voice up a little, a caricature of neediness for his benefit only. “I need you to touch me. _Please._ ”

“That’s the plan,” he promised, pressing another kiss to her stomach before flicking the end of the brush against her again, this time in a slow swirl around her clit.

She ground down again, looking for friction that wasn’t there, then couldn’t help but protest loudly when he stood up abruptly, almost sending her tumbling to the floor.

“I have a better idea,” he informed her. 

“Better than what?” she gasped, trying not to sound angry despite the white-hot frustration that was coursing through her.

"I'm going to run us a bath," he countered. Despite her pent-up aggression, the idea still sounded pleasant. He leaned over her, one hand on her stomach to keep her in place. "Warm water, some bubbles... _the jets_."

She swallowed hard, staring up at him and holding his gaze in a way that she hoped would translate as 'strong-willed' and not 'hopelessly pathetic'. He broke her stare to lean in and speak closer to her ear. She could feel him press against her, then, hard and straining against his slacks.

"And then I'll make sure I get every inch of this," his fingers fluttered up her side, maddingly overwhelming but stopping as soon as it started, "cleaned off of you." He pressed his lips to her jaw. 

"I put it there," he pointed out as he pulled back to look at her again. "It should be my responsibility to clean up after myself."

“Yeah,” she breathed, lost in his eyes for a moment. “ _Responsible_.”

He pulled away abruptly, not bothering to hide his self-satisfied smirk. 

“You bring the wine,” he gestured at the kitchen, where the remainder of the bottle they’d been drinking from still was.

She caught his wrist quickly, raising an eyebrow defiantly when he looked back at her in confusion, until she spoke.

  
“ _You_ bring the brushes.”


End file.
